


AEQUILIBRIUM

by MarinaScarlet



Category: Death Note, Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crossover, F/M, Spoilers for the whole Death Note series
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-26
Updated: 2013-03-29
Packaged: 2017-11-27 00:13:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/655923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarinaScarlet/pseuds/MarinaScarlet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Belle and Gold have Death Notes and their own Shinigamis. They act like serial killers, cleaning the world of its words criminals. They distribute them in two groups: the ones who should be immediately eliminated and the ones who should suffer, everything decided by their own criteria.<br/>They are Gods, they are the balance between the good and evil. They are the AEQUILIBRIUM.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Wishes

**Author's Note:**

> One of the weirdest crossovers I’ve ever made, but I’m quite proud of it. The story came when I was walking home and a Death Note ending (Alumina) started to sound in my headphones. And also I want to thank Serena (still-a-monster) for being my beta and give me some great ideas to make this a multichapter. This is for you, dear!

_Pierre Lecroix – DEAD_

_Henry Anders – DEAD_

_Elizabeth Meyers – DEAD_

_Martin Miller – DEAD_

_Otto van Hallen – DEAD_

_\--------------------------------------_

Belle left the pen on the note, at the same time she massaged her right wrist. It hurt a bit, as well as her fingers. She already wrote three pages of her Death Note; she filled each space of the pages with the deaths of five dangerous criminals. According to the information she had, Pierre Lecroix was a French murderer, a very dangerous one, who had killed even babies and children. She had chosen for him a painful disease in his bones, which would kill him in two years. Henry Anders and Elizabeth Mayers were a couple of bank robbers from UK who had killed ten people in the last three robberies. Belle decided Elizabeth would die in a car accident in three days, and Henry would commit suicide a week after his girlfriend’s death. Martin Miller was an American lawyer without scruples who only cared about money and keeping his fortune at any cost. He had helped a dangerous mafia boss to avoid jail, despite that man had tortured and killed around eight people, so she chose for the lawyer a brain clot in two weeks that will leave him in bed for the next year and a half; he would die of a massive heart attack. Her last victim was a German butcher who had killed his family and had cut up them, to mix their flesh with the meat he had in his shop. Because of the cruelty of the crimes and the danger that represented for the health of the people who bought in his shop, Belle thought he could die by cutting his hand while his was alone in the backshop, confessing his crime by writing it with his blood on the wall.

She was a bit exhausted; thinking of deaths for those five people had left her a serious headache. She closed the note and put it on the secured drawer, reserved for her notebook and Matthew’s. She left her room and went to the living room; surely Gold was there.

-I finished my work, Matthew. Five criminals will get their punishment soon.  
-Very well, my dear. – He rose from his couch and went to kiss her. – I finished mine too; today, ten criminals have died of a heart attack. – He lent her his note. – Tomorrow you will have to use my Death Note, you’ll write the immediate deaths. I’ll write the long term ones.  
-Alright. I need to rest my mind, I have ran out of ideas by the moment.  
-We’re working really hard, sweetheart. Maybe we would need a break from this, only a couple of days. We can schedule some deaths for the next three days. What do you think?  
-I’d like that, but I don’t know if I could get three spare days from the library. And you’ve got plenty of work from the magazine…  
-I can fix that; I’ll work this night in the article about the descent of the criminality in the world during these past three years. It won’t be very difficult.  
-I wonder who will have to do with it… - Belle smiled and then started to laugh loudly  
-Oh, Gods, Belle… You’re incredibly funny. – He laughed with her at the same time he wrapped the girl around his arms.

\--------------------------------------------

Matthew had found the Death Note in the forest of Storybrooke, in a windy evening of October, four years ago, as he took some photos for an article about the place, mostly of the well, which was said to make true people’s wishes. It was the local legend; he never believed in such things, but that day something changed his mind.

In the last year he had thought about all the bad news he saw each day, and all the criminals who avoided jail because an inefficient justice system. He wished to have something to change that, to fix the errors of the world justice. He threw a coin into the well at the same time he closed his eyes and thought about his wish.

When he was returning home, a strong wind appeared, and a notebook fell from the branches of a tree, and it landed just in front of him.

“ _What the hell is this?”_ he thought as he picked up the note from the ground. “ _Death Note… Sounds interesting and dangerous… I like it. I’ll take it home.”_ He put it in his rucksack as he smiled. “ _Maybe my wish has been heard...”_

When he reached home, he hurried to close all the windows and secure all the doors, and went to his bedroom. He shouted the door and opened de bag, taking out all its contents. He picked up the Death Note and sat down on the chair of his desk. He opened the note carefully, and he found some black pages with white words written.

There were the rules of the note.

Matthew seemed astonished, amazed and terrified at the same time. That notebook was like a weapon; according to the rules, if the name of a person was written in its pages, having his/her face in mind, that person would die in forty seconds of a heart attack, if any specifications of the death weren’t written. In the case the writer wanted to add details, six minutes and forty seconds extra were given to write the details of the death. If the notebook wasn’t a fraud, any person could die only with his name written in the note.

“ _A great weapon… A great responsibility._ ” He thought as he turned on his laptop and the TV. His curiosity was winning him, but also the fear of the unknown.

He needed to find someone who deserved death and could be easily checked. He looked in the international channels and streaming videos on the internet, and he found his first victim, his guinea pig, to prove right the Death Note.

John Graham was his name, and his crime had been attacking and robbing a bank, and killing two people during the assault. He had run away from the bank by feet, pointing the police with an AK-48. Matthew wrote down the name and waited patiently the forty seconds.

**_One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten._ **

He started to get nervous.

**_Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen. Eighteen. Nineteen. Twenty._ **

His hands were shaking; fear was starting to take control of his body.

**_Twenty-one. Twenty-two. Twenty-three. Twenty-four. Twenty-five. Twenty-six- Twenty-seven. Twenty-eight. Twenty-nine. Thirty._ **

Sweat started to appear all over his face.

**_Thirty-one. Thirty-two. Thirty-three- Thirty-four. Thirty-five. Thirty-six. Thirty-seven. Thirty-eight. Thirty-nine._ **

**_Forty._ **

He stared at the laptop screen.

The bank assaulter fell to the ground.

The journalist who was broadcasting the robbery was highly surprised.

John Graham had died because of a heart attack.

Matthew closed the notebook and fell of the chair. Fear was painted in his face, but also fascination.

-I see you couldn’t resist trying the note, right? – A deep, monstrous and strange voice called Matt’s attention.  
-Wh-WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU? – He yelled at the monster that was in his room.  
-I’m Ryuk, the former owner of the Death Note you own now. I’m a Shinigami, a God of Death. I’m **_your_** Shinigami, Matthew Gold.


	2. Apples and rain

Helena Mayer was sitting in the sofa of her living room, looking at her apple tree. She had received a call from his contact on the FBI; ten criminals had died during the day because of a heart attack. They were now part of the endless list of murdered criminals in the world. Helena had started that list three years ago when she was still a deputy in the Storybrooke Police Department. She had been expelled from the brigade because she had contaminated, without wanting it, the main evidence of a murdering during the collecting of the clues from the murder scene, letting free the killer.

After that event, she changed her name from Regina Mills to Helena Mayer. The town accepted the change, and both parts sealed an agreement: they would delete everything about her past; the foreigners won’t know about Regina Mills and the town would act as if that person would have never existed.

She also decided she would help people by becoming a private detective. She didn’t have many cases, but she accepted the ones that people wouldn’t tell the police. Those ones were well paid, so she could keep the house where she had lived always, in the wealth zone of the town.

She rose from the sofa and picked up an apple from the basket that was lying on the coffee table. They were her own apples, from the tree she had in the garden. She used to like so much them, but nowadays she was starting to hate them; somebody had been sending her messages in which the apples appeared, and so the Shinigamis. She had looked for information about them, but she found very little. She only knew that they had a Japanese origin and they were the Gods of Death, nothing else. Helena couldn’t figure out the connection between the apples and the Shinigamis, but she imagined that those creatures could be related with the deaths of the criminals of the past three years. Her misunderstanding of everything related with that topic upset and made her angrier and more aggressive than she ever could be.

Helena left with despair the apple again the basket, and then she picked up her coat and went out of her house. A walk into the cold evening could relax her.

\----------------------------------

Belle was sitting in her bed, reading a book and eating gummy bears and chocolate. She was concentrated reading “Sparkling cyanide” from Agatha Christie; it was one of her favourite books, and she was her most favourite author. Belle loved the books about mystery and murdering among the rest of the genres. Her room was filled with her favourite novels, the ones she would read always, and in the living room laid the rest of her particular library.

She put the bookmark in the book and she closed it. She left it in her desk and turned the light off.

-Rem… Are you there?  
-I’m always by your side, Belle.  
-You know you don’t have to follow to me everywhere. If you’re bored, you can go for a walk or whatever. I’ll be fine with it, I promise.  
-But I can’t let anything happen to you. – The Shinigami got close to her. – I just remembered the day I met you. You were fragile, broken, and devastated.  
-It has been four years of that, Rem. I’m not like that anymore; I’ve changed. I’m stonger.  
-But sometimes you’re still fragile. No, Belle, I’ll follow you everywhere.  
-Although you will have to write my name when my time comes?  
-Even that, I will always have an eye on you.

\-------------------------------------

“ _-Excuse me, are you Isabelle French?_  
 _-Yes. What happen? Is something wrong?_  
 _-I’m afraid I’m not giving you good news… Your parents… Have had an encounter with an assaulter and… Both have passed away. My condolences.”_

It was the 6th January of 2008.

It was a cold and rainy day.

It was the day when Belle, only with 16 years old, found herself alone in the world, with no family or relatives who could take care of her.

 It was the day when she turned from a young girl to a woman.

 It was the day when she sworn she would find her parents’ killer.

But it was also the day in which she found the Death Note, and she met Rem.

She explained to it, with grief and sorrow, what happened to her. She was angry, more than she’s ever been, but also devastated and broken. She just had lost everything. The Shinigami listened to the girl’s story, without making any movements or saying something. When she finished, Belle fell to her knees.

The monster looked at her and began to talk.

-Listen to me, owner. I’ve got two options from this moment on; I can kill you now, erasing all your pain, ending this life you think it’s meaningless. I promise you a quick death, without suffering.  
-Which is the other option? – She said as she rose slowly from the ground.  
-You can live, and you can use the Death Note to kill your parents’ murderer. You can get your revenge; maybe that would calm your anger and you would live a little happier. What do you choose, little girl?  
-Give me that note, Shinigami.

\----------------------------------------------

After an exhaustive search that lasted weeks, Belle managed to find the killer. Austin Wells was his name, and his criminal story was full of murdering, tortures, extortions, among many other things. “ _The scum of the Earth”_ she thought as she opened the Death Note by its first page and picked up a pen. She would make him die among suffering, for all the harm and pain he had caused.

Although her hand was shacking because of the nerve, and a bit of fear, she started to write the painful death of Austin Wells. She had only six minutes and forty seconds to write it.

She knew the Death Note worked, she had tried it in two people. The first one had died from a heart attack, and the second had died in a car crash right in front of her.

Belle’s concentration while she was writing Austin’s death was unbreakable; there only were the note, the pen and her; nothing could distract her. She wrote a page with her smallest handwriting.

She knew the death will appear in the newspapers the next day, so she waited patiently. After writing, she felt tired and exhausted, so she decided to go to bed immediately. Rem stood near her bed as it watched her sleep. In the dark of the night, the Shinigami made a promise: it would protect Belle at any cost; it wouldn’t let her suffer.

The next day, Belle bought all the newspapers to check of the murderer was dead; and in fact, he was. Each one said in its titles that a dangerous criminal had been found dead in his apartment, leaving a note on the wall, written with his own blood, in which he confessed each one of his crimes. The details of the death weren’t posted in any of the newspapers.

Belle smiled with satisfaction: her revenge had been accomplished.

The day Austin Wells died was the 21st January 2008.

She decided she would start a new life, in a new place of the United States. She only wanted to forget the unfortunate event that happened at the beginning of the year. She wanted peace, rest, calm; she would move to a small town in Maine.

Storybrooke was going to be her new home.

Belle moved to the town on the 22nd January 2008.

The promise of a new beginning was shining on the horizon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll try to upload a new chapter each week/week and a half. I hope you're enjoying the fic!


	3. Balance

Storybrooke had always been a quiet and peaceful town near the sea, but it had also some dirty secrets that people tried to keep two feet under. Detective Mayer’s past was one of them.

Helena was the pariah of the city. She tried really hard to remove that label but it had been impossible; the citizens of the town would never forget her little mistake in that case.

She was one of the last obstacles in their ladder to become the Gods of the New World. They had to eliminate of their way all the police and the security agencies; or at least make sure they won’t betray them. It was a very delicate mission; if they wanted to succeed they will have to be really careful.

Matt and Belle were known in town for being a cute and nice couple, and for their compromise of helping people with anything. It was only a mask which hid their real themselves: two people who had decided to make a better world by eliminating all of its scum. Gold’s reasons were more idealistic than Belle’s, who was thirsty of revenge. Although she had killed already her parents’ murderer, she wanted more. “ _No more happy endings for the ones who are evil_ ” was her motto.

Matthew and Belle were the representatives of the Gods of Death in the Earth, and as they said, they were the balance between the good and evil. Aequilibrium, as it was said in Latin.

People in all around the world knew that something was changing, that a new force was starting to rise, that the balance was going to be right, in the end.  

The AEQUILIBRIUM was starting to rise, and nothing could stop it.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------

Matthew had left the Death Note hid in one of the drawers of his desk for around a year. He was scared of using it again, scared of its deadly power. That was too much for him.

Although he wanted to accomplish his plan, the method exceeded everything he had ever imagined. A notebook that could kill. If he told people about it, no one would believe him; they’ll think he had gone nuts.

Ryuk knew that Matt would use the note again, sooner or later. He knew that something would spark in him, and then, the flames would begin. The waiting would be worthy.

And after a year, he picked up the note. Not because he had changed his mind.

Not because he wasn’t afraid anymore.

But because there was another note in the human world. Another person that had a Shinigami following him/her.

One day, in the newspapers, there was a page entirely dedicated to some murders that have happened recently, a very gory and violent ones. In all the crime scenes have been found handwritten pieces of paper, calling to a new saviour of the world, a new God which was about to rise.

_Oh unfortunate souls that walk in the shadows of this vast land_  
 _Those who have deceived the pure name of the justice_  
 _Those who have taken lives in order to keep on living_  
 _Those whose actions keep away others of living_  
 _You, corrupters of the peace and the balance_  
 _Shall suffer a divine punishment_  
 _A new God will rise, and will teach the people the true path_  
 _The **aequilibrium** will be restored_

He had to know who was, he needed to know everything about it. Yes, that person could help him in his pursue of a perfect world. He would kill again; he would put hidden messages in the crime scenes. And he hoped the mysterious killer would find them.

That was a searching for the mate in the rush for the utopia, but also was a test. And Matt really hoped that person would pass it.

-This should be easy enough to understand. – He told to Ryuk. – Look, the code is as follows. There are sentences with not much sense between them, but if you pick up the first word of each one, a new sentence will appear.

**_Stranger_ ** _… That’s who I am now._  
 _ **Who** have I been?_  
 _**Are** these wings a vision? Are you my savior?_  
 _**You** , angel, come and save me from this hell._

-“ _Stranger, who are you?_ ” will be the new sentence that will be formed. The police won’t pay attention to this, and the other owner, if it looks a bit closer, will understand the message and will reply in the same way. – He smirked, satisfied of what he had done. – And then, I’ll try to find it. And whoever it is, will help me to accomplish my mission, although I believe it has started.  
-What makes you think that?  
-Look at the message that was left in the crime scenes: A new God will rise.  
-Are you completely sure, Matthew?  
-About what?  
-About if that person would help you.  
-Of course will help me. Look at us, we’re two people with powerful weapons, and it seems that we both want the same thing: erase the evil, create a whole new world, with that person and me as the rulers, as the kings. – He laughed and rose from the seat of his room. – As Gods. – He took a step closer to the window of his room, looking through it. – It’s perfect, Ryuk. Completely perfect.  I’m going to do what I’ve been waiting to do from some time ago.

He took a notebook and a pencil and went down to the living room.

-I have to establish contact with that person. I have to be ready to answer in a secret code. And we must be careful; we can’t let the world know that are two people. – He walked nervously around the room, thinking. -  Or maybe yes… Yes. Yes! – He laughed maniacally again, making the Shinigami laugh too. – I can almost taste that New World.  
-Humans… You’re completely nuts!

\--------------------------------------------------------------------

Belle couldn’t believe it.

She stared at the laptop screen with astonishment.

-Rem… Did you know it?  
-What?

She looked at the being with surprise, pointing at the screen at almost yelling.

-There is another Death Note, and therefore, there is another Shinigami. How you couldn’t see it?  
-I don’t know. Maybe it isn’t near us.  
-And around the world? Can’t you localize it?  
-I can try, but I can’t guarantee you that I can find the other Note, Shinigami and owner.

It seemed that her plans of eradicate all evil from the surface of the Earth were going to be a bit more complicated if she couldn’t establish contact with whoever had the other Death Note, and see if their goals were common.

She was a bit sceptical about why the other owner had “discovered” now. Maybe the Death Note had fallen in the world not so much time ago, but the message said the opposite. That Death Note had been for some time in Earth.

Was the other owner just a person that didn’t specify the deaths of its victims? Had that person been hiding for such a long time until she had started to put those messages in her murders?

She had to discover everything about the mysterious owner, and above all, if it was going to help her to accomplish her goal: create a world without evil, making the ones who disturb that peace suffer for their crimes. Meanwhile, she could play with the owner, forcing it to kill to communicate with her.

That was such a perfect plan.

She had to reply first the message, also in the way it had done it. The key was very simple and she had understood it after reading it twice. The message didn’t mean anything at all but the police wouldn’t pay attention to it. “ _Maybe a divine revelation before dying…_ ” she told to herself as she picked up a pen and some spare sheets to thinking into a reply.

-Welcome to my game, owner. Welcome to the game of Eve and Adan. Two notes, two Shinigamis, two owners. We can have everything, or we can have nothing at all. In our bare hands lies the solution. Choose wisely. – She muttered as she focused into the reply.

_**Owner** of the Celestial Keys_  
 _**Of** the Kingdom in the Skies_  
 _**A** signal has come to me_  
 _**Death** wants me to join him_  
 _**No** fear is in my body_  
 _**Te** ars won’t fall from my eyes_  
 _**And** I know my time has come so please_  
 _**You** won’t weep for me, my dear angel, do you promise?_

-It’s a bit more cryptic but we can’t let the police know that we are trying to get in touch. But I’m completely sure that it’s understandable.

Her sight rose from the paper with the marked message and looked through the window of her modest apartment in Storybrooke.

Meanwhile, in the same city, separated only by a few neighbourhoods, Adam Gold smiled pleased as he gave a funny look to his Death Note.

And as if the cautious and delicate hands of the destiny had been working with its tricks and magic of the fortune, both owners raised their voice and said at the same time the same sentence

**_Mysterious owner, I really hope that our goals are the same. We can accomplish so much together._ **

Soon, both sides of the coin, the sword and the balance, the two New proclaimed Gods, were about to meet.

The race for reaching the utopia had just started.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By the way... All the messages that Belle and Matt send each other in this chapter (and in the following ones) have been written by me. That idea of Death Note was awesome and it was necessary for the story... These ones were easy, some of the upcoming ones are a bit more tricking.


End file.
